Dumped rubbish clean-up call

(Damjan Janevski). 260628_02

By Oscar Parry

Illegally dumped rubbish was again the talk of Melton councillors, with the council set to write to the state requesting prioritised clean-up on government-owned roads.

At the June 23 council meeting, councillor Bob Turner called on the council to note the “ongoing and increasing community concerns and amenity impact of illegally dumped rubbish on roadsides of Victorian Government-managed roads” in Melton, and significant delays in the rubbish being removed from roadsides by the state.

It also called for the council to write to Roads and Road Safety Minister Melissa Horne to outline these concerns and request that the state prioritises funding for the Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) to ensure timely removal of illegally dumped rubbish on these roads in Melton.

“We have our own trouble within the [Melton municipality] cleaning up rubbish, but a lot of the major roads are run by VicRoads or the Department of Transport,” Cr Turner said.

“It lies for weeks and months, and our community is so sick of it – and we as councillors get the backlash all the time and it’s really not in our jurisdiction.

“We need to be more vocal, especially regarding other levels of government where they’ve got responsibility in these areas.”

Councillor Julie Shannon said that these state-roads are “so busy and are gateways to our beautiful city,” and supported anything council could do to “rattle the cage” in regards to the DPT cleaning up the rubbish “way more often – or even at all.”

Echoing these sentiments, councillor Sophie Ramsey said the rubbish takes away from the beautification of the municipality.

“I don’t know how many dumped mattresses are too many dumped mattresses,” Cr Ramsey said.

Councillor Phillip Zada said that it is quite surprising how many reports the council receives about dumped rubbish on assets that don’t actually belong to council.

A DTP spokesperson said that the department urges everyone to dispose of their rubbish responsibly and be mindful of the impacts that roadside dumping has on the environment.

Star Weekly understands the department inspected the Melton municipality boundary on June 1 with rubbish removal works scheduled to be completed by mid-this month, and $976 million was included in this year’s state budget towards road maintenance across the state.